Ever throw a party and no one shows up? Stinks, right? So imagine what happens when you throw a wedding and no one comes. That happened in Israel this past weekend. However, an enterprising cousin and her smartphone helped turn what was a pretty depressing sight into a fantastic party.

There was a reasonable explanation why people didn't show up to Annette and Lior Solomon's wedding: Annette's father passed away last month, and most guests had assumed the wedding would be cancelled. But the wedding went on as planned. When guest Shani Rubin Segev arrived around 10 p.m., the huge venue was virtually empty; only a dozen or so people were at the reception.

She took a picture of the empty reception hall (right) and posted it to a public Facebook group, telling people in the area to come by and make things more festive. "The bride in the past two years has lost both her parents (father died about a month ago), and now there's no one there except a few family members," she wrote. She ensured people who came that they didn't have to bring anything but themselves. "Don't need a gift, don't need money. Just stop by and fill up this hall."

In about a half an hour, a few hundred people showed up, and eventually, the venue was packed with somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 partygoers.

This is what the crowd looked like after about an hour:

(Photo: Mali Samerano Soprano via Facebook)

People sending Facebook posts and tweets from the wedding were amazed at the crowd that showed up, like these guys who said, "There are events you never forget in life ... This is one of them!"

(Photo: Tony Hayon via Facebook)

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